The Couch: It's Not Just For Potatoes Anymore

After being marooned on my couch for several days, I think I am now qualified to offer this practical manual for surviving your second illness in three weeks. So here are, in no particular order, some practical steps for maximizing the enjoyment of your couch time.

1. Eat a 16-ounce box of See's chocolates (a gift from your Aunt Mary and Uncle David) in three and a half days. Well, don't eat the entire box; of course you'll want to throw out the gross pieces.

2. Have Thai food delivered and get all excited about it until you remember that being sick kind of kills your appetite. Well, being sick or all that See's candy. Either way, your Thai snacks will last you at least two meals.

3. Since the stuffy head - cold medicine combo ruins your sleep patterns, you'll find yourself awake and asleep at odd hours. So doze in front of the multiple showings of We Are Marshall on HBO. It's not a bad movie, what little you actually see of it anyway, and Matthew McConaughey sports some very serious sideburns.

4. Discover one of your very favorite movies, Paper Moon, on cable at 4:00 a.m. and watch most of it without dozing.

5. Resolve to make a dent in that pile of unread New Yorker magazines sitting on your bedroom floor. Begin that project with great satisfaction, and then start reading a novel, too. In this case the novel would be A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby. While you loved Hornby's High Fidelity, you hated How To Be Good, but so far, A Long Way Down is proving to be rather enjoyable.

6. Lament the fact that your DVD player needs repairing, even though you know you can play dvd's on your computer if you get desperate enough.

7. Return to the television after a while and find Undercover Brother on Comedy Central. Hardly the highest in cinematic quality, but a pretty funny movie. Especially Dave Chappelle's performance.

8. Blow... literally... through all of your tissues and most of your toilet paper. Punctuate that with wondering when you'll have the energy to buy more. Oh, and make sure you take out the garbage after a couple of days because... well, yuck.

9. Hop onto iTunes and purchase a few selections by the Kinks. Except for "Come Dancing," you hate all the Kinks' big hit records, but you suspect you might enjoy some of their album tracks. Especially the ones from the '60's.

10. Look out your window at the pouring rain and be very thankful that you're comfortably nestled under a fuzzy blanket.

I hope you find these tips helpful, should you pick up a virus this cold and flu season. They worked like a charm for me. I started to feel better after a few days and did manage to make it to about an hour and a half of the annual AtmosTheatre New Year's party. Luckily for me, the party was two blocks from my apartment, or else there's no way I could have mustered the energy for even an hour and a half. And today I was able to replenish my stock of paper products, take a short run (mostly walk) and go back to work. So my recovery is well underway.

It must be the See's candy. Maybe chocolate has medicinal properties.